A Quiet Death

by Marcia Talley

  ‘Try his cell,’ I suggested.

  This time, Paul answered on the first ring. ‘Ives.’

  ‘Mr Ives, I have your wife here. She’d like to speak to you.’

  ‘Thank God!’ Paul exclaimed, so loudly that I heard it all the way across the room. Andrea punched the speaker button, then set her open cell phone on my chest.

  ‘Talk to me, Hannah,’ Paul ordered.

  ‘There was a train crash.’

  ‘Jesus, I know. It’s all over the news. I tried to call you, but when you didn’t answer, I feared the worst and decided to come looking for you. I’m on Route 50 now. Are you all right?’

  ‘Well, I won’t be playing tennis any time soon.’

  ‘Damn it, Hannah, don’t joke. Over the past two hours, I’ve been out of my mind with worry. Besides, you don’t play tennis.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just . . .’ Hearing my husband’s voice, so calm and reassuring in spite of the seriousness of the situation, sent me off on another crying jag. ‘My arm’s broken,’ I snuffled, ‘but otherwise I think I’m OK.’

  ‘Where did they take you?’

  ‘Prince George’s Hospital Center. I’m not sure where that is exactly.’

  Andrea leaned forward, cutting in. ‘In Cheverly, near the intersection of 202 and the BW Parkway.’

  ‘Got it. I’m almost there, Hannah. Ten minutes, max.’

  ‘Paul,’ I sobbed, ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you, too, sweetheart.’

  When the doctor popped his head into the examination room two minutes later, I was still bawling.

  He grabbed my chart out of a box mounted on the wall next to the door, scanned it quickly. ‘Hannah Ives?’

  ‘Uh, huh,’ I sniffled.

  The doctor approached the examination table, studying me over the rims of a pair of clear, plastic-framed reading glasses. ‘I’m Doctor Vaughan, and I’ll take that as a “yes.”’ Dr Vaughan turned to the nurse’s aide and asked, ‘Has anybody done a neurological?’

  ‘Yes. Other than the broken arm, she seems to be fine.’

  Dr Vaughan checked my eyes, ran his hands along the length of both legs, squeezing gently, then pressed the fingers of both hands into my belly. ‘Take a deep breath,’ he instructed as he felt around my waist and abdomen. ‘Another.’

  I didn’t scream in agony, which I imagine he took as a good sign. ‘All seems to be normal in that department.’

  After he listened to my heart, the doctor said, ‘I’ve ordered a CAT scan – cervical, lumbar and thoracic. Nothing to be worried about, Hannah, we just want to make sure there’s no contusions or hairline fractures.’ He patted my leg. ‘You OK with that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘We also have to X-ray that arm. Would you like something for the pain before we proceed?’

  I nodded again. ‘I was at Woodstock, doctor. I’m one hundred percent in favor of good drugs.’

  Dr Vaughan grunted, scribbled something on my chart, then turned to go.

  ‘Doctor?’ I asked. ‘When will I be able to go home?’

  ‘One step at a time, Hannah. One step at a time. We’re pretty slammed here, as you can imagine, but if the CAT scan turns out negative, once we get your arm set, we’ll be sending you home.’

  ‘With a supply of good drugs, I hope.’

  Vaughan grinned, made a ‘V’ with his fingers. ‘Peace now,’ he said.

  By the time Paul caught up with me, the CAT scan was over, perfectly painlessly, as it turned out. They’d rolled me down the hall and into an elevator, hauled me out on another floor, then pushed me into a chamber where a huge white donut of a machine loomed, pulsing with energy, like a transporter on the Starship Enterprise. The gurney, with me on it, slid slowly in, slid slowly out, while I hummed my way through as many Beatles songs as I could remember.

  ‘How long did the CAT scan take?’ Paul asked me later as my fingernails were digging into his arm against the pain while they X-rayed mine.

  ‘Two “Hard Day’s Night,” one “Ticket to Ride” and a chorus of “Michelle,”’ I told him, wincing, wondering when the pain meds the doctor had given me were going to kick in.

  ‘Good to know,’ he grinned.

  The X-raying of my arm took longer than I expected – above the joint, below the joint, now ninety degrees to the right, if you please. To the left, to the right again. Thank you. Sheer agony, and more tears.

  ‘“It Won’t Be Long,” dum-dum-dum, “It Won’t Be Long,”’ Paul crooned in his gravelly baritone, trying to distract me while a nurse got permission to up the dose.

  By the time Dr Vaughan got around to setting the bone, I was feeling no pain. I hadn’t been so high since . . . well, never mind. What happened in the 1970s stays in the 1970s. Applying the cast was a breeze, too, efficient and painless, requiring no Fab Four diversions. While I perched on the end of an examination table holding my arm steady, a physician’s assistant, wearing purple gloves, wrapped it up to my palm in long strips of what looked like white, self-adhesive bubble wrap. Then she applied layer upon layer of fiberglass cast tape, thin as gauze and watermelon pink. ‘The warmth you’re feeling now will go away in a couple of hours,’ she told me as she snipped the tape half through with a pair of blunt scissors and threaded it between my thumb and forefinger, adjusting it to fit. ‘Spread your fingers for me, now, please.’ She glanced up for a moment. ‘The cast will need to stay on for about four weeks.’

  ‘Your wife should see an orthopedist,’ she advised Paul a few minutes later. ‘Do you need a referral?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ I interrupted, mildly annoyed that she was talking to my husband as if I were his elderly mother, or had suddenly left the room. ‘My husband’s taught at the Naval Academy for years. There are a number of sports doctors among our acquaintances.’

  ‘That’s good,’ the PA said, wrapping both of her hands around my colorful cast and pressing gently all along its length to seal it. That done, she straightened, stripped off the rubber gloves and tossed them into a trash receptacle. ‘You’re good to go.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Everyone here’s been great.’

  ‘It’s been a difficult night,’ the PA commented, glancing up from the sink where she was washing her hands. ‘We’re lucky, in a way. There were hundreds of injuries. Minor things, mostly – cuts, broken bones like yours, mild concussions – things we can fix. Have you watched the news?’

  I shook my head. ‘Been kind of distracted.’

  The PA smiled wearily, tucked a strand of her pale, shoulder-length hair back behind one ear. ‘They’re reporting seven fatalities, all in the first car.’

  ‘That’s where I was sitting,’ I said with a quick, sideways glance at my husband who visibly blanched at the news.

  ‘Then you have an angel in your pocket, Mrs Ives.’

  ‘Somebody was watching over me, that’s for sure.’ A vision of that empty seat and the youth sauntering past me to claim it shimmered hauntingly in my brain. I shivered, then swung my legs around, ready to hop down from the table.

  The PA laid a restraining hand on my leg. ‘Not so fast! We need to put you in a wheelchair.’

  ‘Why? I can walk.’

  ‘Hospital policy.’

  I rolled my eyes, but was secretly relieved. It was nearly midnight and I felt like a zombie, sleepwalking my way through what little remained of the day. While Paul trundled off after the PA to fill out some paperwork and pick up my prescription for hydrocodone tablets, I leaned my head against the paper-covered headrest and dozed.

  At one point, the nurse’s aide, Andrea, popped in to report that, alas, nobody with a name resembling ‘Skip’ had been brought in as a patient that day. ‘It would help if you had his last name,’ she said, but I didn’t, of course.

  Andrea was still with me, speculating cheerfully on what name ‘Skip’ could be short for when Paul returned, pushing an empty wheelchair.

  ‘Your chariot awaits,’ he quipped. Andrea helped
me down from the table and got me comfortably settled in the wheelchair while Paul went off to fetch the car.

  ‘Where are my things?’ I asked as Andrea pushed me down the hallway like an invalid, through a pair of automatic doors into the humid night air.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’re right here,’ she said, indicating a large plastic sack hanging by its drawstring from the back of the wheelchair.

  After Paul pulled up, she waited until I got settled in the front passenger seat, then leaned across me to fasten the seatbelt.

  ‘Bye, and thanks,’ I called after her through the open window as she pushed the chair back toward the hospital entrance. She turned and gave me a wave.

  Paul slid into the driver’s seat. I suddenly remembered my car, sitting in the parking garage at New Carrollton where I’d left it, oh, sometime in the last century. ‘What about the Volvo?’

  ‘Later,’ Paul sighed, sounding exhausted, too. ‘We’ll deal with that later.’

  ‘Good,’ I said as he pulled out of the hospital drive and headed east on 202 toward Route 50. ‘The only thing I can deal with right now is home. And sleep.’

  The next morning, I popped a pain pill in the upstairs bathroom, then staggered down to the kitchen a few minutes before eight thirty, lured by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee that had wafted its way up, tendril-like, to the bedroom. I found my husband sitting at the kitchen table, the front page of the Washington Post spread out in front of him.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, making a beeline for the coffee pot, holding my throbbing arm aloft. Paul had set a clean mug out on the countertop for me, and I filled it gratefully.

  When I joined him at the table, he folded the section over on itself and pushed the newspaper aside.

  ‘Why’d you do that?’ I asked, indicating the banished Post.

  ‘Do you think you’re ready to read about the accident?’ he asked.

  I usually wrap both hands around my mug, appreciating the warmth, but that morning I could only hold on to it one-handed. ‘Someday, but maybe not today.’

  ‘Ruth’s driving me to retrieve the car,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Can you tell me where you parked it?’

  Yesterday seemed like forever ago. In that distant past, I’d driven in circles inside the multi-story parking garage, twice, maybe three times around. ‘A couple of floors up in the garage nearest the Amtrak station,’ I said at last.

  Paul groaned. ‘That certainly pinpoints it nicely.’

  ‘Aim the keys and push the button,’ I said, pumping my thumb as if I were holding a keyless remote. ‘You’ll find the car eventually.’

  ‘Where are the keys?’

  I had to think for a moment. The keys had been in my handbag, and my handbag was now . . . where? Through the fog of the previous evening, I suddenly remembered something about another bag. ‘Didn’t the hospital give you a plastic sack with all my stuff in it?’

  ‘Oh, you’re right. When we came in last night, I set it down in the hall.’ While Paul went off to retrieve my handbag, I slid the Post toward me and opened it up.

  They’d identified the first victim, the driver of the train. His picture stared out at me from the right-hand column of the front page: Walter Kramer. A pleasant-looking, bald-headed man with fair skin, smiling green eyes and a spotless, ten-year driving record.

  Just above the fold was a chilling picture of our train. Just short of New Carrollton, it had smashed into a stationary train, climbed up its rear, gnashing and grinding, disintegrating along the way.

  I stared at Kramer’s photograph. Were you responsible for this carnage, Walter? Surprisingly, I felt no anger, only sadness that this man – who had a wife and two young children – had lost his life, like the other victims, in such a tragic way.

  Had he had a heart attack? Autopsy results were not yet available.

  Had he been texting on a cell phone? The investigation was continuing.

  Was there a system failure? NTSB was on the case.

  I heard Paul padding back down the hall, so I shoved the paper aside.

  ‘Here you go,’ he said, tugging open the plastic drawstring and upending the sack on the table in front of me. Out tumbled my handbag, a clip-on name-tag, a canvas tote of freebies from the fashion show luncheon, and a shopping bag from Julius Garfinkel & Co.

  FOUR

  ‘Oh. My. God.’

  Still holding the sack by a bottom corner, Paul gaped at me as if I’d lost my marbles. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘That Garfinkel’s bag. It isn’t mine.’

  Paul balled up the plastic sack Prince George’s Hospital Center had provided and tossed it into the trash bin under the sink. ‘Whose is it, then?’

  ‘Skip’s. The guy on the train I told you about.’

  ‘Damn! So how did it get in with your stuff?’

  ‘It was probably lying on the floor next to me when I passed out. The paramedics must have assumed . . .’

  ‘Garfinkel’s.’ Paul picked up the bag and peeked inside. ‘I haven’t thought about them for years. They’re out of business now, right?’

  I nodded. ‘Late nineteen eighties or thereabouts. What’s inside?’ I asked, my curiosity piqued.

  Studying me over the edge of the bag, Paul grinned impishly. ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ I laughed. ‘Tell me what’s in there!’

  ‘A box.’ He spread the opening wider, peered down into its depth. ‘Looks like one of those cardboard boxes that Christmas shirts come in.’

  ‘May I see?’

  ‘Sure.’ Paul slid the cardboard box out of the Garfinkel’s bag, brought it over to my side of the kitchen table and set the box down dead center on my placemat, like an entrée.

  ‘Do you think it will be OK to open it?’ I wondered.

  ‘Why not? Could be something. Could be nothing. You won’t know until you look.’

  I nudged a corner of the box top with my forefinger, raising it about half an inch, teasing him. Another nudge, a quarter inch more.

  ‘Hannah!’ Paul tousled my hair playfully. ‘It’s not a bomb, for heaven’s sake! Open the damn thing!’

  Thus, led by the man I married into a life of petty crime, like so many women before me, I whipped off the top of a box that didn’t belong to me.

  The first thing I saw were three packets of letters, each neatly tied around the middle with pale green ribbon. I picked up one of the packets and thumbed through it clumsily with my one good hand. The letters all were postmarked in the early 1980s.

  Beneath the letters I found a white envelope with a metal clasp. I opened the clasp, raised the flap and peeked inside. ‘Photographs,’ I told my husband, before laying the envelope aside.

  The only item remaining in the box was an expired United States passport in the name of Lilith Marie Chaloux, who had been born April 4, 1953, in San Francisco, California. On the day she sat for her passport photo, Lilith Marie had worn a school uniform – plaid jumper, white blouse with a Peter Pan collar – and had drawn her dark hair up into a high ponytail. She looked about sixteen, but wise for her years, gazing seriously at the photographer with delicately arched brows over dark, intelligent eyes, the merest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

  Paul had been kibitzing over my shoulder. ‘A rare beauty,’ he said. ‘A heartbreaker.’

  I had to agree. Lilith was one of the most beautiful young women I’d ever seen, like Audrey Hepburn before she cut her hair in Roman Holiday.

  ‘How old would she be now?’ I wondered.

  ‘Fifty-seven,’ Paul declared without hesitation. He was the mathematician in the family.

  I set the passport down on the table and picked up a second packet of letters. The one on top was addressed to Ms Lilith Chaloux at an address in the 17e arrondissement de Paris, and although the postmark had badly faded, I could tell it had been mailed in September of 1976 from New York City. There was no return address in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope, so
I peeked at the back flap. No return address there, either.

  ‘I wonder who the letters are from,’ I said, flipping through the second packet without untying the ribbon, and then the third. ‘They’re all in the same handwriting, but there’s absolutely no clue on the outside who sent them.’ I gave my husband a look, and waggled my eyebrows mischievously. ‘Maybe they’re love letters!’

  Usually my husband is Mr Proceed With Caution, so it surprised me when he said, ‘Open one up, read it and see.’

  ‘No. I can’t.’ Using my good hand, I shoveled the passport, photos and letters back into the box. ‘Help me put the lid back on,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t you want to know . . . ?’

  ‘Of course I want to know. Who wouldn’t be curious? But these letters are not mine, and it seems like an invasion of someone’s privacy to go reading them without permission from either the recipient or their current owner.’

  ‘Who is?’ Paul inquired reasonably.

  ‘Lilith Chaloux.’

  ‘Or . . . ?’ Paul prompted.

  ‘Well, I suppose they could belong to Skip, the guy sitting next to me on the train.’

  ‘Whose last name is?’

  I had to admit that I didn’t know.

  ‘I can’t simply assume that Skip died in the crash.’ I insisted, slipping the shirt box back into the Garfinkel’s bag. ‘When the paramedics arrived, I was holding his wrist. He still had a pulse. I have to make some effort to find him and return the bag. If these letters belonged to me, I’d certainly want to get them back.’

  Paul poured himself a second cup of coffee, leaned back against the kitchen counter and sipped the hot liquid noisily. ‘What do you think Skip’s relation is to Lilith?’

  ‘She is, or was, his mother, would be my guess.’

  ‘Could his last name be Chaloux, too?’

  I tapped the passport. ‘Unless she was married at sixteen, Chaloux would be her maiden name, Paul.’

  ‘Whatever,’ he said, ‘but it wouldn’t hurt to Google her.’

  ‘Brilliant idea, Professor Ives.’

  Carrying our mugs, the two of us trooped down to Paul’s basement office, where we powered up his computer and learned that, alas, Lilith Marie Chaloux had no Internet presence at all. ‘At least she’s not dead,’ I commented wryly. ‘Or at least, she didn’t die spectacularly.’